IV
For the first time in many days, Hurricane’s hooves touched soft earth. She smiled in a way difficult to replicate; pure, condensed happiness would come to mind. Though most pegasi cared not about what they were to land on, Hurricane, again, took the ground beneath her as a symbol of the warmth of the sun, the daylight, the summer.
Also, on a completely unrelated, unsymbolic note, she was hungry and there was grass.
Several minutes later, Hurricane was full. Deciding to leave the air be for the moment, she trotted forward, taking in the scenery around her. Behind her, the Sleipnirs, rearing high, abruptly stopped against the earth. At the base of the slope, where she happened to be, a meadow of mountain grasses ran down a much more pleasant incline for several miles before crashing into a large, dimly-lit pine forest.
She wasn’t going to go into that forest. She had too much to do, too much distance to cover to avoid playing around like a filly. That mindset lasted all of two or three seconds before she grinned and bolted forward in a sprinting gallop. Though her flying was legendary, her other physical talents were often unknown. Running, as it happened, was one of them, and in only twenty or so minutes, she had covered the entirety of the distance and slowed as she drew close to the trees.
As she approached the first tree in her path, she was struck by just how enormous it was. Though from the field, the distance had tricked her eyes into seeing them as closer instead of larger, they were truly giants, easily spanning eight to ten meters at the base. As she backtrotted a few paces and looked up, the tree stretched into the sky for more than enough distance to make estimating it impractical.
Looking through the cracks into the trees at the deep, shadowy forest, Hurricane found herself smiling slightly. The mountains were boring; stone and snow that went on for miles upon miles. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, the blood pulsing through her veins. She could feel just how alive she was.
There was a proper word for that, but the more she reached for it, the less likely it seemed it was to appear. So shrugging it off for the moment, she began to trot slowly into the shadowy trees.
Beneath the massive canopies, it was predictably dark and wet, the ground spongy and mossy beneath her. This part of the world was so incredibly remote that there was no trail to be found in the entire forest, and certainly not next to the Sleipnirs, one of the most remote, unpopulated areas on Equis. Hurricane found herself leaping and, on occasion, even flying, over stones and massive fallen trees.
As she kept moving through the forest, the trees began to become a bit knotted and twisted, the moss slightly less spongy and vital. Curiosity piqued, she followed the unhealthiness until she could almost feel something in the air. It wasn’t what she expected, though. Instead of some foreign magic, or some strange illness, it felt almost familiar.
The reason became apparent as she entered a clearing. An enormous jewel stood in front of her, rectangular in shape, lines of magic visibly running through it. It took a moment to register in her mind, but as it did, she jolted in visible surprise. “A magical power Array…from the Ring? How did it get here?”
These incredibly powerful gems were what kept the Nimbus Ring in the sky. Though most ponies thought that the pegasus cloud cities were kept afloat by nothing by virtue of being clouds. Not so; it took considerable amounts of magical energy to even suspend them in the sky. Nimbus Ring, however, did not float. It flew. The power to move such a massive sky city was impressive indeed.
Of Nimbus Ring’s Arrays, three were devoted to lifting the city from the ground and keeping it in the air. The other two were required to move the city though the sky. The fact that one of the Arrays had fallen from the city was concerning. Beyond the direct repercussions, which would severely limit the Ring’s mobility, the Arrays were kept in the most secure chamber possibly, deep within the bowels of the flying fortress, and reinforced with several barriers.
What could’ve broken through the protective magic? The thought was disturbing, that not only could something penetrate the powerful shields, but it could also tear the Array bodily from the magical systems of the city and send it flying to the ground. Finally, the pilot of the Nimbus Ring didn’t have time to stop and retrieve the all-important gem.
All of this fit together into a rather unfortunate picture: A being, likely quite large, in possession of intense power, had assaulted the Nimbus Ring, for one reason or another. Given that there was a distinct lack of any other debris, it seemed that the Ring had at least escaped, but Hurricane no longer felt that joyous feeling of life. She certainly didn’t feel safe. The twisted trees became less interesting and a bit more threatening, and she decided that she’d had enough.
Backtrotting several paces, she flared her wings and prepared to fly. As she spiraled through the branches and emerged into the bright sunlight, a colossal roar shook the very air around her. It was all she could do to keep in flight. A massive, hazy silhouette emerged behind her, the air reverberating to the sound of behemoth footsteps, and any shred of courage left in Hurricane’s heart fled in a blink. Her wings revved and she blasted ahead faster than she’d ever gone before, the world blurring around her.
Another roar, farther away this time, thundered through the air all around her. The mysterious creature’s power was lessened with distance, though, and Hurricane’s wings refused to falter, cutting quickly and cleanly through the air. Her breathing was heavy, both from effort and from terror, and as she looked behind her, the beast had vanished. As conscious thought began to return and she began to slow, she angled herself upwards, rising to several hundred feet into the air.
Once she felt safe, she stopped flying altogether, hovering nervously as she scanned the forest beneath her. The only thing that remained of her heart-stopping terror from only moments earlier was the slight path of brown, twisted trees deep in the forest. There were no enormous monstrosities to be seen. Swallowing nervously, she turned and flew on, occasionally glancing behind her, expecting to see a dark shape looming at any moment, just waiting for her to drop her guard.